Don'Yoku Reviews

nice

A great old school SHUMPS whit a fantastic OST!

Great shmup! DonYoku is a cool shooter in the vein of DoDonPachi and Gunbird. I enjoy playing it.

When it comes to oldschool styled games, I am very picky; this game looks like a direct port from a 90s arcade machine. I'm also very picky about bullet hell games; this game was very bullety, and very hellish.

EDITED REVIEW, SEE BOTTOM This game is really, really fun. There are still a few small issues that need to be worked out (mainly relating to the ability to use the analog stick on 360 pads) -- but the developers have been VERY *prompt* AND *active* in the community, responding to bug reports and having patches out within days at most. And, they've assured us that the next patch will address ALL of our control issues! The game itself is a pixel-art, tate, Japanese style shoot-em-up -- and it really has a lot of character and style. The ONLY negative at all at present is the control issues, but I've found that using my arcade stick (and JoyToKey) has proved to be a working temporary fix. I really expect to see this one veer into "Positive" soon -- especially once the control fixes are patched! All in all, I've found it to be a very fun, original, and aesthetically pleasing shoot-'em-up! EDIT: revisiting this game years later and none of the control problems (in particular) were ever really fixed. game is not bad by any means but I can't really recommend it as it seems to be abandoned and the control issues are pretty obnoxious.

The game begins with the Steam overlay screen on - so there's that. It's a nightmare to figure what key to press to navigate through the menus let alone to actually start the game. Then, when I stumbled across a menu-screen that looked like I could change to a controller, it was impossible to actually configure anything. Even at an 80% discount and at 57p I had to refund. A total waste of time.

This is a beautiful vertical shmup with plenty of challenge, especially on later levels and later bosses. With Joytokey wasn't to tricky to set up key binding. Controls are very tight. Sometimes hard to avoid enemies running into you like on the last level some trickiness to the last couple bosses, but overall I strongly recommend this game. Wish there was more posted gameplay and runs.

Remember when shootemups and bullet hells were actually as brutal, manly and badass as their difficulty, and not exclusively about magical shoujos? Don'yoku is a rare breed of manly shoot'em up action with a very tradional arcade flavor, the last of its kind in an already struggling genre that seems to be dominated by formulaic Touhou knockoffs. Seriously though, this has the visual aesthetics of a Toaplan classic like Batsugun, the heavily rockin' soundtrack of a Raizing romp like Battle Garegga (think Dimahoo), and the tight and realized scoring system of a modern cave title a la DoDonPachi. That's a seriously impressive balance to achieve, and if you have any idea what I'm talking about so far you should probably just pick up this game right now. [b]Don'yoku[/b]; the last of the manly shooters!

Don'Yoku is the reincarnation of the cabinet that sat in the corner of your local dive arcade. You know, the one that gorged itself on the pocket change of the unwary and stubborn; the one that had even the guy with seemingly superhuman coordination and reflexes sweating during the early levels. If you were that guy, Don’Yoku will reveal whether you’ve still “got it.” If you were the bystander who could barely surmount stage one, then Don’Yoku is your chance for redemption. Whatever your goal and whatever the outcome, you’re going to have fun. This is a brutal but enjoyable game: tough but fair. The first stage mercilessly showers you with bullets. The second? Ditto. The third? Same. The fourth? Guess. The fifth? Good luck getting there. As you make progress, Don’Yoku will pour on the rain in increasingly dense patterns, and you’ll love every minute of it. Controls are just about as tight and responsive as possible, so as much as you might curse the game when death comes (and it will), deep down you’ll know the real reason you keep eating bullets is poor plane placement and/or slow reaction time. Granted, upon first encounter, some patterns will appear impossible to dodge. In these instances, Don’Yoku’s weapon mechanics serve as a buffer. Strategic use of your arsenal can extend your survivalbility by quite a bit. You are given three planes to choose from, and each comes with a standard machine gun, an energy beam, and a Don’Yoku attack (basically, a bomb). Damaging enemies with the machine gun fills the Don’Yoku counter (i.e. gauge) for the Don'Yoku attack; whereas, the energy beam causes slight slowdown of onscreen action and converts kills to coins for increased score. A huge part of surviving in Don’Yoku involves efficient swapping of the the weaker machine gun and the more powerful beam, as well as juggling Don’Yoku energy stocking with Don'Yoku attack striking. Do this balancing act well and combine it with effective dodging, and your plane can endure a beating. All in all, great gameplay and cool presentation makes Don'Yoku a must-have for bullet hell aficionados.